


Machine/Mortality

by PansexualDonnaNoble



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Swearing, Connor deserves better, Father-Son Relationship, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mentions of Cole - Freeform, Shutdowns, Stratford Tower, Temporary Character Death, hank deserves better, i love these characters more than anything but they must suffer, its real sad fanfiction hours oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 19:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19046731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PansexualDonnaNoble/pseuds/PansexualDonnaNoble
Summary: He was dead. Right here in his arms. Distantly, he realizes he's the only person in this damned tower that can be bothered to care





	Machine/Mortality

**Author's Note:**

> I know what you're thinking "this bastard doesn't write anything for two months and comes back with angst????" oops. hi. anyways i'm back with angsty stuff and i've got nothing but angsty ideas for stories to come so. there's that?

The LED is the last to dim, at first. The android beneath him stills before any sense of loss can be fully registered. Its accompanied by unnerving stiffness. However in this position the android could be mistaken for a sleeping human, if it were not for the fading light that kissed his temple and the lack of a steady rising chest.

After several hours-- although he's sure its actually been only several moments-- the light flickers fully out, extinguished. Like the stars withering, once bright and neverending, now dimming further into bland, _tasteless,_  darkness.

And in the seven seconds that envelop them both and shield his deniability from morphing into a fragile understanding of the severity of the situation, his wrinkled hand meets Connor's forehead in an impossible moment, as if the man was simply ill with the flu, head hot with sickness, the lieutenant watching over him, _vigilant._

Hank stares down with an unnerving detachment at the blue that stains the back of Connor's hand, and the hole that decorates his chest. There wires that flickered beneath the brunettes grey jacket that could faintly be made out, however obscured they currently were. And, for the first time in years, a crippling sense of loss and familiarity overtakes him. The only sounds he hears are his own soft breathing.

_Fuck._

He doesn't move, nor does he blink for several seconds. Maybe he was fine. _Maybe_ this was just him fixing himself or doing whatever bullshit androids did that made them heal faster than human's could. Maybe he could finish and he'd open his eyes and--

He's not one to spend much time hoping. Hope wasn't useful, not in his experience, not after... hope was a dangerous thing to give to people who needed it. He stopped needing it years ago for his own sake.

He was in here for only a few _minutes,_  he thinks. How the fuck can shit hit the fan so quickly? What the hell even happened to him? He was in the other room. Maybe ten feet away. _He didn't hear him dying._ But that's what he was doing, and he didn't...

His eyes flicker from the body that lays in his lap to the androids in front of him, lined up and unnervingly still as none of them meet his eyes, preferring to stare ahead, still as they blink every few seconds, distantly, from somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders if Connor got anything out of them before... well, it didn't really matter anymore, he thinks bitterly.

He doesn't know when he started to think of him as a 'he.' Or when he started to care about the body in his arms, or when he stopped feeling like being partnered with him was some cruel punishment. He doesn't want to have to think about that, not when someone-- his-- his _partner,_  just died in his damn arms.

_There's snow that's angry and determined that dances down on the road before them. Far too much for any sane person to travel in. Or, rather, for anyone who wasn't from Detroit and wasn't used to the beast that was Michigan in October to travel in._

_To a local, this was a gust of wind compared to the weather that would come up in later months._

_He hates snow so damn much. It makes his leg ache and causes his immune system to betray him. And there's always more cases as if snow causes criminals to decide to go more feral than usual. He wouldn't be out in it, not normally. Not if his life depended on it. Not if he wasn't getting paid for it._

_But there's a brown haired six year old in the backseat that refuses to wear anything but the pirate hat he got for his birthday last month that he'd do anything for. And the brown haired six year old knows this. Which is probably how he got convinced to drive him to his favorite arcade in such shitty weather while his mother was busy at work as a soft country song plays on the radio._

_A soft voice breaks the steady silence as they pass billboards, other cars continuing around them._   _"Dad?" The voice asks. The grey haired man's eyes dart upwards, glancing once in the mirror, watching the boy fidget with his hat, before returning to the road._

_"Yeah, kid?" He responds, turning the volume of the radio down and glancing a second, brief time in the mirror, watching as the other glances towards him and meets his eye._

_The kid in question continues to watch him. "I'm gonna beat you in air hockey again." He states it as if it's the only true thing in the world. The kid was so much better at it than he was, that was true. It makes the grey haired man smile, before he forces himself to raise an eyebrow and put on an expression of mock doubt. "Is that so huh? You know being so sure of yourself is a crime? Shit I'd hate to have to come back there and arrest you."_

_The brown haired boy giggles, a sound the other would be able to recognize in any crowd, it's a giggle that he thinks of from time to time that reminds him of what makes getting up in the morning worth it. Like a_ _chorus_ _so pure it bends the universe itself. It's a giggle worth fighting for. "Oooh you said a swear!" The boy's smile is practically able to be heard as he drags the last word out._

_"Is that sass I hear? That's it kiddo, your toes, hand them over." The man up front teases, eyebrows creasing and lip pouting in_ _exaggerated_ _exasperation_ _, though his amused tone gives his true feelings away. He was supposed to cut back on the swearing around him. Kid was getting older, eventually he'd decide to try some of the words out. But telling_ _Lieutenant_ _Hank Anderson not to swear was like telling the sun not to be so bright in the summer._

_This only causes the giggles to increase, and he can practically hear the kid leaning forward to shield his shoes from him. "Okay, okay, you can keep your toes. But only if you go easy on me in air hockey. I'm an old man you know."_

_A giggle. "Deal."_

_His attention turns fully back to the road before him, though his thoughts wandered somewhat. There was so much to do when they were done. So many cases. But for now he was here. Let those police androids he keeps seeing everyday handle them for now. He was here._

_He'd always be here._

_Trees blur as the two continue, cars passing them. His eyes catch a grey truck up ahead, the snow continues to fall, heavy and thick._

_A soft gasp catches his attention, his blue eyes look back, glancing in the mirror again at the sight of the brown haired boy. His mouth formed an 'O' shape as he looked down, his head of hair was more visible without anything on it. "My hat!" His shock was almost comical, staring down as if losing it was an impossible feat. He began to unbuckle himself from where he sat in his booster seat._

_The grey haired man's body moved for a second, glancing back, eyes switching between what was ahead and the boy in question, eyebrows furrowing. "Hey, no. I can pull over and get it stay in your seat." His eyes glance towards the road again, a grey truck was still ahead of them. "Cole-"_

_His eyes dart back to the road at the sound of tires screeching._

_No._  His own voice, hoarse and laced with anger, resonates within his head. _Not fucking now._

Replacing grief with anger came easier to him than acceptance. He chose anger, blame, it was easier that way. To bury the pain and embrace the rage.

His blue eyes move from where they were glued to the room around him again. To the clones of androids that Connor came in here in the first place for. He regards them with cold bitterness and they once more merely blink with a robotic indifference as he continues to support Connor in his arms.

His eyes catch something silver on the ground beside him, without thinking, he reaches for it, fingers clutching it as he lets it rest in his palm, examining it.

He doesn't know what it is, apart from it being machinery. It's colorless and cylindrical, he doesn't need to be a robot expert to know it has to be what was once _in_ the android.

He swallows, for a moment, he allows hope. Maybe he could-- _maybe--_

He moves the flaps of Connor's jacket, the exposed wire and circuits of his chest revealing themselves. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing, but he's stupidly hoping-

He shoves the part inside of him, unsure of if he's done anything the right way apart from a loud _click._ And for the longest minute of his life, he waits.

Hank isn't sure what he expected. For a moment he expects his eyes to snap open, breathing in deeply and loudly like someone whose nearly drowned. A person doing the impossible and _returning._

None of this occurs, however. Not after four seconds. Not after eight. Not after a whole minute. Connor's eyes remain closed and his body remains still.

Fucking hope.

For a moment he really thought...

His hand moves on its own, cruelly ripping it out and throwing it to the side as it loudly connects with a table leg next to him.

Rage was easier.

Footsteps behind him remind him fully of his surroundings, and in a inexplicable moment, he distantly wonders if they belong to the lifeless man beneath him. It's a bubble he finds himself in only to have to popped four seconds later as a voice fills the air, breaking the silence that hung in it.

"Shit, what happened here?" Hank shifts, turning to face the familiar voice, his face not hiding his anger. The dark haired form of Perkins glancing down at him as he walks further into the room. The man's eyes flicker to the form beneath him, the smug, amused grin on his face not changing. Hank wanted nothing more than to punch it off of him. "Plastic shut off on you?" His head cocks, glancing around the room and at the androids in the corner. Hank grits his teeth.

"He's dead you _prick._ Someone--" he glances back down at the gaping hole in Connor's chest. "ripped something _out_  of him" His grip tightens on Connor's jacket, more out of anger than anything else.

Perkins brown eyebrows raise, a soft chuckle releases itself from his mouth. "He? It's a machine, lieutenant." His eyes seem to spot the part thrown against the table as he speaks, walking further as Hank watches him as he stretches out a pale hand beneath a table, bending down and examining it before rising again and turning to the older man, raising his hand, waving it once as Hank squints.

"This is their 'heart' isn't it? Stupid to call it that really. They're wires and circuits." Perkins sniffs, tossing it on the table as he looks around the room. "You should get up, Anderson. Clean that blue shit off of you before it disappears. I'm sure Cyberlife would want to know that their toy broke."

Hank sighs, nodding his head slowly as he forces down a bitter laugh, something unknown in his features as Perkins heads towards the door. "What about whoever did this?" His voice is low.

"Whoever did this is probably long gone by now if they're smart. Go home, let the people who actually know what they're doing handle this."

"Fuck you, Perkins." He blurts, eyes focused somewhere on the ground.

"You're not my type lieutenant." Perkins calls.

He's left with Connor as the other man leaves, footsteps fading.

He hates how familiar it feels.

Almost an hour later, a cleanly dressed blonde haired man in white comes, the words **CYBERLIFE** stuck on his jacket, relieving Hank of the android beneath him, draping him over his shoulder as he departs just as fast as he came, apologizing for any trouble or inconvenience this caused as if Connor was simply last night's trash.

Vaguely, he realizes he is the only person in this building who thinks this is wrong. That at the very least the android's body deserves better than to be handled in such a way.

He goes home.

He makes a few calls.

He doesn't have a partner for whatever this investigation was turning into anymore. Not that he ever treated said partner like a partner. And he'd much rather drown himself in a game of Russian Roulette and a bottle of whiskey right now.

But there was still work to do.


End file.
